Ain't No Use Clutchin' At The Butter

Or, if for once you want a title that makes sense, "Who Owns a Meme"?

I don't claim to have invented the "Positional Revolution". That would be the players who dared to do fifteen-hundred things at once, or the coaches subverting the conventions of their day. But I do know that I coined the phrase, started the conversation (on the internet) at least, and, have pursued it with some seriousness for the last 4.5 years, along with the help of brave souls like Tom Ziller. Unlike that batty "Liberated Fandom", which was formulaic, purposefully rude, and at some point gives way to common sense, I am relatively proud of the writing I've done about positionality in the NBA, and even the phrase "Positional Revolution" itself. When I was in OKC, I had a long conversation with Sam Presti about it and didn't feel the least bit self-conscious, something of a minor miracle for me.

Why am I bringing this up, on a near-defunct blog whose readers are well familiar with my snappy little phrases? Well, it appears the Positional Revolution has gone mainstream, and I've been left behind. There is a band that makes a perfect analogy here, but I'm blanking on their name. Last summer, the blogosphere suddenly flared up with new discussions of position, and quickly, the phrase "Positional Revolution" entered the picture. I thought this was neat, until it kept going, with no acknowledgment of, well, ME. Finally, I spoke out, and was accused of, basically, not understanding that online, everybody knows I made up that term and constant genuflection would be a waste of everybody's time. I posted something pissy that updated my thoughts and then went on with my life.

Well, it's back again, but this time, I genuinely worried from a "branding" and "marketplace of ideas" standpoint.

It doesn't really matter that Rob Mahoney and I disagree on some of the finer points of positionality and its discontents. If you want, when my back hurts less and I'm less generally angry, I can link up all the posts I've done, many of them with TZ, on the subject of structure in basketball. Basically, categories must wither and die, and instead you get heuristic groupings that vary depending on situations. The re-distribution of responsibilities takes place not only on the macro- level of a starting line-up, but also within the ebb and flow of any given possession. This is possible because of players who feel, and respond to, the game in this way; as I wrote in 2007, "the Positional Revolution becomes most radical when the inflamed individual is transubstantiated into a form of basketball logic." Certainly, it doesn't really get into defense, something Danny Leroux has dealt with.

The point is that, when the phrase "Positional Revolution" is written about at great length on the New York Times site without my receiving any credit, it upsets me. I can't assume that everyone reading Rob's piece there knows about what I've done in the past. Is that egotism? Maybe. But it's also a question of how much right I have to be identified with this conversation that sprang up from the web—especially when it's a phrase I coined myself. When I load up the NBA page of Business Insider, a site I write for, and find Adam Fusfeld crediting Rob with ushering in a new era of positions, I can't help but get frustrated and write in this tone.

I know, I have no right to complain about anything, my life is one big party, etc. But you try and spend hours and hours working through an idea—even coming up with a snappy name for it—only to find yourself more or less invisibly as it starts to find a wider audience. Or, to be perfectly blunt about it, this was my Revolution. Take it up if you want, just don't, in effect, pass it off as your own. And yes, at some point, omission is an insult, not proof that my ideas have become part of the ether.

On second though, I'll just trademark the term, and content myself with royalties. Since that's what this is really all about.

There Is No Scrap Impartial

Don't miss the Morning News roundtable on sports and writing, with Pasha Malla, Will Leitch, Katie Baker, Chad Harbach, Nic Brown, and me.

I think we finally have our Psychological Man. His name, much to my utter surprise and possible chagrin, is DeMarcus Cousins.

As long as this site's been live, we've harped on player psychology. Not "what is a point guard thinking in the clutch", but as best we can, tried to determine what makes these dudes tick. Especially when, as it so very not the case in other sports, uniform execution simply won't do, and the decisions players make—their respective styles, if you will—can't help but reveal something about them as people. It may be only a thin breach here and there, through which little light is admitted, or gaping blast of individuality, but either way there's humanity in them there ball players.

Somewhere out there, a unified theory of FreeDarko presents itself in the heavens. For now, I'd go so far as to say that style and personality are the strong and weak force of our NBA cosmology, which is why no amount of boring-ass critiques will make me lose interest in Kobe Bryant. It's also why Gilbert Arenas was for so very long our patron saint. His entire public existence depended on either riding or struggling against that interpretive undercurrent "quirk". With the locker room incident and FINGER GUNZ, it went so far as to suggest that, in fact, he had been (figuratively, duh) swept out to sea. At some point, the joke ceases to be on the rest of the world, and out-there behavior becomes either sad or self-destructive.

That's also what happened with Michael Beasley, whatever happened with Beasley. He entered the draft speaking with uncommon candor—which in retrospect, turned out to be a "don't let me do this" cry for someone to keep him in school. At the time, though, it really seemed as if teams were being forced to confront the possibility that players could be weird, and yet still thrive. Arenas was a high-wire act, someone who played up his shtick for commercial gains and then found himself seemingly fall victim to his own act. Beasley entered the league not playing pranks and committing absurd gestures, but simply refusing to make sense. Again, at the moment it's hard to say he was taking a stand for anything but his own immaturity. And I mean that in the most light, sympathetic way possible.

All of which brings us to DeMarcus Cousins. You all know the story by now. Cousins was, all the way back to his high school days, branded "a problem". He didn't have Arenas's charm or Beasley's enigmatic qualities. DeMarcus Cousins had, as they say, an attitude. He was not a high-character guy. Supposedly, he fought with coaches, loafed, and wouldn't stay in shape. Whatever had happened at Kentucky, where he proved so dominant that John Wall was often relegated to a supporting role, was fool's gold compared to the monster he would become as a pro. It didn't help that, in many ways, the most apt comparisons the pros offered were Zach Randolph, Eddy Curry, and reaching back a ways, Derrick Coleman (that one more than ever after Vegas, but I'm getting ahead here).

I was staunchly anti-Cousins, though mostly owing to the fact that I thought his college career was a mirage and his height not what it turned out to be. When the whole thing got all weird and paternalistic, I realized which side justice smiled upon. Cousins was trapped in a strange rhetorical bind best described as "worst available". He was the bad seed of the draft, the high-risk, high-reward guy who got all the ink, and of course. Not every draft class is so lucky as to have one. But once anyone can be stuck in the "bad kid" or "problem" category, they will catch hell up until they prove otherwise.



Beasley, incidentally, saw his stock of evil rise (fall?) as the draft approach. Draw your own cause and effect conclusions here, but Cousins loomed larger and larger as a talent and became more and more of a potential thug creature. Don't blame FreeDarko; we dispatched Joey Litman to meet Cousins and observe him acting like the kid he was. Beasley had said "I'm a kid", but for him that opened the door out onto all sorts of weirdness. Cousins really just came off as sweet, likable, and hardly the kind of ass who would warrant such premature nay-saying.

Fast forward to the Vegas league, where Cousins's debut was awaited almost as eagerly as Wall's. When he proved even more of a force (granted, Wall had very little to prove), and flashed skills and awareness that had once been mere fluff in the mouths of his biggest supporters, Cousins instantly became the second-biggest star among the rookies. That attitude we heard so much about? Damn right it's there. But it's fire, intensity, and the desire to flat-out destroy his opponent, especially other big men. It's exactly what so many other bigs are lacking, and why they end up a very different kind of bust. Cousins rages because he cares. It's that simple. To say that his personality can be rough or stubborn at times is to say that he's a gamer. Attitude on the court, if it's this kind of edge and determination, is the exact opposite of what off-court attitude will sow.

And it's not like Cousins is lacking in self-awareness, something we can debate all day about Arenas or Beasley. The Timberwolves, of course, tried to throw him off by antagonizing and harassing him, expecting him to crack and show the lunatic no one wanted to draft (including them). Except as soon as Cousins caught on, he disengaged himself and opened scoffed at the tactic. Does this sound like a wayward brat to you?

All of which brings us back to psychology. Cousins did, indeed, possess many of qualities NBA scouts feared in him. Except he possessed them in a way that manifested itself primarily on the court, where they were a decidedly good thing. Differentiating between on and off-court personality, as well as mapping out their intersection, has never been more important than now. What's more, the "good kid"/"problem" binary has revealed itself to be, if not a farce, at least utterly simplistic, the kind of clap-trap that no journalist—much less a scout—should bother to hang his hat on.

Cousins might seem to call into question whatever it is that Arenas and Beasley represented. On the contrary, in his contradictions, he make more urgent than ever the need to develop a more psychologically sophisticated approach to assessing prospects. Arenas asserted the right to be kooky, unpredictable, and obsessive; Beasley, incoherent, compelling and loud. That was a fair description of each at their best, and if their stories ended today, each would serve as a cautionary tale against this kind of player. Cousins, though, makes the case for the development of something new, something that might actually better equip a team for an Arenas or Beasley—that is, anyone other than an outright bust.

Earlier today, Ziller wrote about Rashad McCants. McCants, it seems, was Cousins before Cousins, and had the bad luck to not be born very tall. No one has yet been able to tell me exactly what it is that makes McCants so horrible and unemployable. Maybe he's not the best defender, and there have been some confounding incidents with scheduling and contracts (like TZ's post today). But McCants himself believes he had been blacklisted, and I'm inclined to believe he's not far off. McCants deserves a chance to succeed based on his abilities, not some shit-poor conception of what makes for good and bad soldiers in a mechanized world that never really existed in the first place.

Crank It Up, Feel the Health

I never thought I'd get a chance to experience Tiger Woods, or Brett Favre, but here I am. As best as I can tell, NBA blogging exists at this point to type, all drivel-like, about whatever someone told someone else in the last hour. Good thing I am busy with the book. However, one thing's clear: There's a lot of bullshit in the air, of the worst, inflammatory kind. And once that stuff is said, there's no going back. No correction ever really repairs things. The process by which a celebrity beats back initial false reports is almost as fascinating as it is sickening. And as I've said, some public figures simply lack the clout to move past it.

I come here not to blindly defend Arenas, or offer explanations as I did when Delonte rolled around strapped. I still don't know, any better than you or the constantly updated news stories do, what happened and how it interfaces with the law. But a lot of the reporting here, and blog dissemination of it, is straight out of last summer's campaign. I know, Sharpton's contrasting the arena Obama watches games at with steel in the locker room. And yet isn't this "where there's smoke, there's outrage" b/w "there's always next hour's web update to clean things up" approach to news exactly what allowed the right to get traction with stupid shit throughout the campaign?

But in a lot of ways, this is even worse. Dear everyone, do you remember who broke the John Woo-ready version of the story? Peter Vecsey. Along with Sam Smith, he's pretty much the one reporter whose rumors you might as well write the opposite of and go from there. Now in this case, he did have a kernel of truth in what he wrote. Yet he wrapped it up in every conceivable layer of sensationalism, and continues to even in the thrice-scrubbed-over version of the story that sits on the Post's site now.

(Lang reminded me that Gil pointed out that one of Vecsey's original sources was a street ball player. Appropriate, seeing as Vecsey's the And1 of NBA reportage.)

Vecsey unleashed a scene right out of the old cowboy Pacers, Yahoo! actually came first, but theirs was much more solidly on the back of previous reports about the investigation. And from there, all hell broke loose. We built this city on Peter Vecsey; Yahoo!'s far more responsible report inadvertently added fuel to the fire. It was a classic example of going for broke with the news micro-cycle—and, if anyone cares, setting up readers of print dailies to be completely misinformed for days on end.

Have I brought up Vecsey enough? Anyone remember when he claimed Josh Smith and Zaza were fightin' with fists in their locker room, and then had Smith attacking bouncers? These were major blows against a young player teetering between "future star" and "head case." Then, lo and behold, AJC beat writer supreme Sekou Smith—who was there—set the record straight. Read the whole link, but the gist: Peter Vecsey is a snake who makes shit up for tabloid reasons. Anyone who doesn't conduct themselves with this fact in mind is no better than him.



Now I'm just getting angry, which is when I'm at my least beautiful. Suffice it to say that I also find it odd how conveniently Gil's "moral turpitude" fits in with the Wizards long-term business interests. As was Monta's with the Warriors. So in conclusion, this would be a good moment for us all to learn to take a deep breath, not listen to false prophets, and realize that like it or not, sometimes these things take time. Otherwise, you might as well believe message boards. Those shits get updates like every five seconds!

Swept Away

Hey, remember when that giant NBA history book came out, written by a writer I've in the past had lots to say about, and I didn't say anything about it? Or maybe you remembered that we're working on our own look at pro basketball's past, and figured "FreeDarko's too scared to speak!"

For those of you who care to hear my opinion on The Book of Basketball, kindly enter THE READING ROOM, where myself, Sherman Alexie, Tommy Craggs, Jonathan Lethem, Ben Mathis-Lilley, and Sam Anderson are talkin' Simmons. Presumably, you recognize all those other names. If not, you can meet new people, and read Sam's opening salvo, on the front page. So far, Sam, Sherman, and myself have posted; in the interest of self-promotion, here's a direct link to mine. We each get two, and are hoping for a lively comments section, too, so bring your Sunday best!

Remorse Isn't Picky

Okay, so I didn't get around to getting anything longer about Jennings near finished. Partly because it was drawing parallels between that and Manny's performance, which is stupid unless you attach a bunch of qualifiers to it. Or are drunk. Luckily, my argument is primarily about spectatorship and aesthetics, as you'll see tomorrow. But still, I felt I needed a little more distance, as I don't want anyone to kill me. I don't know, what do you think?

Instead, some Jennings odds and ends, to go with the "what do you think":

-My Baseline piece on what 55 really means for Jennings as a player.

-Ty Keenan proposes another read participation acitivity: Who can come up with the best Jennings/Minutemen joke?

-Toward the "what exactly happened in Italy?" question, Sixers4guidos translates and sends along part of a column published today in the Italian daily Il Messaggero. Title: "Jennings, From Bust to Scoring Star."

"We talk again about Jennings, considered a spoiled and insecure kid here in Rome... now a star in the NBA....he shocked the League with a stunning show... he did well also in preseason now he got attention from mainstream media and gained trust from many... but in Rome he was little considered... they never had faith in him, (giving him) few minutes on the court (and he produced) obviously few points... to be honest, he never excited (people) in the few occasions he played, even shoving an attitude that could have been considered ornery/morose... sure, US bball is different from european, few defense and many chances to show (someone's) shooting ability... he was the first to jump from high school to Europe..."

He's saving some other choice excerpts for his own spot, so check back there later. Update: Here's the post.

-Why do I think that by watching Jennings again tonight, it'll sort of be like getting to see John Wall's debut?

WHAT DO YOU THINK?!?!?!!?!??!?

Art Slash Science

You may have noticed that the NBA season started last night, but you may not have realized the full ramifications of that momentous event, such as the fact that the FreeDarko Presents the Disciples of Clyde podcast is back to being just about weekly. If you don't know, now you know.

This week, Dan builds on Shoals's Basketball Prospectus post by talking with Kevin Pelton himself about the new book and also providing a primer on advanced basketball statistics. Even if you, like me, are wary of eggheads who would turn art into science, this is still stuff that we need to at least try to understand. And despite my oft-expressed skepticism, I do think stats can complement what we see with our eyes and help provide a fuller picture of the game. Also, to help you get started, Kevin put together a handy resource page over at Sonics Central. Check it out.




The soundtrack to our lives:

“We Make Beginnings” - Je Ne Sasi Quoi
“God Bows to Math” - Minutemen
“Something I Learned Today” - Husker Du
“You Don’t Know Like I Know” - Sam & Dave

Talking Just For You

The season stirs. Roy Hibbert will fuck you up. Thus, get ready for more podcast, and more of it. If you catch my drift.

This week, Dan and I visit with SLAM don Lang Whitaker to discuss that seminal mag's 15th anniversary, where it fits into journalism, and what a great job it is. Then we start talking Hawks at about the same time as tiny space aliens inject me with large amounts of drugs, but whatever, Jamal Crawford is the shit and I have nothing to hide. If you want to see Lang and I in the same room, hit up BwB 2.0 in Vegas next week.



Some serious business: Visit the Disciples of Clyde so you can support Dan in the Chicago Pancreatic Cancer Research Walk on Saturday, October 17. On a more upbeat note, Ken just had a baby. Congrats!

Music from the episode:
"King of Ink" - The Birthday Party
"Slapped Up (Snap N Clap)" - Madlib
"Styles of the Times" - Yo La Tengo
"The Hawk" - The Melvins
"Dreamland Skank" - The Upsetters

For other means of obtaining this program, try iTunes and the XML feed.

Other People's Lives

I really need to be working on this chapter about the integration of the NBA, and I did post something on FD today, right? But I am about to explode over accumulated energy and angst over some race/sexuality/basketball stuff, and I'm sick of carrying on 15,000 chats at once about it, while trying to provoke some reaction over Twitter.

Exhibit A: Brendan Haywood: If you don't know this story, I have no idea how you found your way to this site. Newsflash: Pro athlete is not entirely comfortable with the idea of homosexuality, uses language that might offend some. I might even include the fact that Haywood is black, since it's relevant later. My reaction yawned at these comments, instead choosing to focus on what might make Haywood retreat into such a defensive, reflexive position. He brought it up, remember. No one said "what do you think of that effeminite Marbury."

Exhibit B: Tim Povtak, FanHouse columnist, clowns O.J. Mayo for wanting to return a diamond bangle. Now granted, Povtak admits he just might be old school, and does mention Bill Russell and Joe Dumars as dudes who wouldn't wear flamboyant jewelry. And I by no means wish to imply that a desire for excessive ice is a genetic trait inherent in all young African-American men. But I read this as basically questioning the manhood of any present-day athlete who dresses flashy, which by and large applies to black players.

It has as far back as the 1970's, when Earl Monroe rocked high heels and Clyde wore mink on the subway. To regurgitate somethng I remember hearing in grad school, it's a form of racism that also manages to be sexist, since it puts down an ethnic group by feminizing it. EDIT: Yes, that does also make it implicitly homophobic, too.

I know Tim Povtak is no Brendan Haywood, in terms of visibility or just plain mattering to most people. But why is it that Haywood—whose attitudes are par for the course everywhere in sports, including on the web—is being criticized for saying what most athletes think anyway. It's also no secret that, culturally, the question of homosexuality in African-American communities is even more thorny than in your average predominantly white enclave. That's worth considering when Kevin Arnovitz mentions that he's overheard one of the NBA's most "enlightened" players spout homophobic cliches. That doesn't excuse it, just makes it unexceptional. At the same time, Povtak writes something that, at least to me, was not only uglier and more layered but also less expected. And yet no one's freaking out about his column, as far as I can tell. It's just some grouchy white guy complaining about the younger generation.

I have nothing but the utmost respect for peers like Kelly, Kevin and Ziller who have written about Haywood as part of a bigger problem. I don't for a second disagree with that assessment. I do wonder, though, why the blogosophere—which I'd argue is usually on the surface more homophobic than racist—is so quick to condemn Haywood (and itself?), while Povtak's column, which turns over a new leaf as far as yuckiness is concerned, drew little criticism. Is homophobia an easier target? Are we that scared to talk about race? And should it matter that much more when an athlete says it, than when a writer—supposedly the "smarter" side of the equation—puts his foot in his mouth?

I assume all things are wrong at all times. If we've moved on to prioritizing, picking our spots, or working with the demon we know best (as in, would like to admit we know best), please tell me.

Podcast and Friends

Very special episode of FDPDOCNBAP here, as Dan and Ken seek refuge from the NBA dog days by chopping it up with Bomani Jones on those intertwined subjects of sports, race, media. You know, that easy stuff that total strangers always get together to discuss over Skype. Thanks to Bomani for coming on—I sat this one out mostly because I just wanted to sit back and listen to the finished product.



Music:

"Loving" — William Shatner and Ben Folds
"Pot Kettle Black" — Wilco
"Will It Go Round in Circles?" — Billy Preston

For other means of obtaining this program, try iTunes and the XML feed.

One Good Thing Explains Another

For my money, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains is the best rock movie ever. Maybe Cocksucker Blues burns it alive when it comes to just plain hangin' out, falling in love, and playing it cool (emphatically NSFW video). But nothing quite captures the crushing desperation, snarling idealism, and complex post-Situationist trappings of punk rock like Stains.

As a bonus, you get perhaps the most realistic depiction of the adolescent female experience this side of Thirteen. You also seen that Laura Dern was kind of hot before she grew up, and Diane Lane has pretty much been hot since the day she was born, which since both were probably underaged during the filming of this movie should make you feel really weird. Or remind you of a scene in Six Feet Under that would be hilarious if it plopped down in the middle of Entourage, where Nate's friend tells him that sometimes he looks at his daughter's friends and feels something he hasn't felt since he was a teen himself.

The really awesome part about this movie, which would be the defining film of the decade were it not for Superman III, is that it was produced by Lou Adler. You know the face, if not the name. He sits next to Jack! He's at every Lakers game! He is basketball incarnate! And thus, like the brilliant plot-fuck that would result if you put The Orphan's twist at the end of Know1ng, all is right and it's time to sum up the off-season with some of the most quotable moments from the early going of Stains. Not a wasted word in it—kind of the opposite of this summer.

You know, you think this town wouldn't die. That's how dumb you are. This town died years ago!

Is Steve Nash talking about himself or the Suns here? Or the Arizona housing market?

And she died of lung cancer?

That's what they call it.

What do you call it?

Breathing.

Yao and T-Mac were always playing on borrowed time. You could say that we should enjoy what they gave us, or get really angry at them, like me when I read about Bill Walton.

You father was never around?

Your father is dead. BEEP He was in the army BEEP Means you get more money BEEP Have a good day BEEP

Artest has reached that point where he can't shock or surprise himself or others. So everything's cool. Like Hawaii being build on a bunch of volcanoes.

What goals did your mother have in life?

I don't know, I wouldn't call her and ask.

This whole "Kevin Durant gaining on LeBron" thing is bad for everyone involved, including fans of both.

Here you are, just sitting around at home wasting time

I wouldn't call it wasting time



I hope GMs are showing off their cap space as a means to get female attention.

What about love?

I'm too far gone for love.

Whatever happened to Kirilenko?

So long as you're alive. .

I mean, we can sit here and waste our precious time philosophizing about love, and make it sound terrific, but what it boils down to is that we're just a bunch of horny dogs.

And this is why Don Nelson will always have a job, even if he has to pay himself.

Do you think your views may change as you grow older?

Grow older?

Let's quit cautiously pealing away the onion's layers and admit that Iverson's bind is all about issues of African-American masculinity.

What happened to the furniture?

I sold it.

George Shinn should've thought of that before dealing everyone's BFF and NBA sex symbol Tyson Chandler.

I like you and your sister. I think you're all nice kids. But I say to myself. .

You'd better watch yourself, because if they catch you talking to yourself like that, they're going to fire you for sure.

Strangely meta-moment, seeing as the viewer is constantly asking him/herself "can I find a very young Diane Lane attractive, since she looks so much like later Diane Lane, and carries herself like an adult?" You people are sick! This line tells you that!

Now Corrine Burns, what are you going to do?

My name isn't Corrine Burns. It's Third Degree Burns. I'm the lead singer and manager of the Stains.

There has to be some player I'm forgetting who is sitting around waiting for a huge deal to drop in his lap. The one holdover who doesn't get that things have changed. I mean shit, even Tim Thomas went quietly.

One time I heard Larry Hughes and Darius Miles talk for half an hour about how each of them was going to get their next big contract. This was two years ago.

In case you haven't heard, you're the laughingstock of this town.

Hey, did you hear the one about David Kahn?

Don't you have something to do? You know. Maybe your homework for once. Or you could take Jason for a walk, or how about cleaning your room. Huh? What do you think?

Nice multiple choice.

Kevin Pritchard and the Blazers may have had to settle for Andre Miller. Or they showed they have the strength and cunning to contain multitudes. This is a central debate among scholars of class and values.

I gave you your name.

That's why it's so lousy.

Actual exchange between Donald Sterling and Elgin Baylor.

We're the #1 rock 'n' roll group in the world and we're going to see that everything's going to be different. It's got to change. The first thing we're going to do, we're going to build a radio station tomorrow. And we're not going to play no commercials, or no news. Just rock 'n' roll and the truth. 1-2-3-4!!!!!!

You don't draft Brandon Jennings to come along slowly or get muzzled by Skiles. You grab a new era by the horns and hope you've got good insurance.

Now you're really going to have a freak.

Zach Randolph to Memphis only makes sense if that's where the Ghostbusters have built their new containment unit.

ELSEWHERE: On a more serious, less petty note, please read my column on the joys of restricted free agency.

The Nothingness Is Lovely

By now, you should know Joey [classified Jew name]. He writes for FD on occasion, is responsible for the ever-excellent Straight Bangin', and this week was a guest on the FD/DoC podcast. He also really likes The Hills, which figures prominently in a long interview I did with Eugene for his "The People You Don't Know" podcast. It will either make you love or hate me more than ever, or maybe send me sympathy ribbons.

Growing up in a household bereft of prescribed bedtimes or limits on television, and one where knowledge of all kinds remains the leading currency, I developed a “talent” about which most parents wouldn’t normally brag to others. But on more than just a few occasions, my parents would smile with this weird, proud amusement as they told other people that, “Joe stays up so late and likes sports so much that he can watch the same SportsCenter three or four times a day.”

That Joe--he really knows how to use his time well.

My neuroses aside, I summon this memory because it reinforces two related things: 1) I consume a lot of sports media; 2) I still have no clue as to what the NFL Draft is supposed to be about. Every year, I am left feeling the same way--the most misleading weekend in sports is that of the NFL Draft, because, honestly, it seems to be about everything but the actual sport that it nourishes. It strikes me as even more bizarre when it is juxtaposed against the NBA Draft. The NBA Draft is fun. The NFL Draft? Not really. The NBA Draft reflects the fluidity of basketball: point forwards, flex offenses, and “we like his athleticism so we took him.” The NFL Draft, meanwhile, reflects the rigidity of football: set positions, arcane formation rules, and “signability.” To be honest, it sucks.



First, think about the NBA Draft. No, wait. First, let us just get this out of the way: yes, the NBA Draft is an event, or a process, really, riddled with problems. As Hubie might warmly acknowledge, “We know this. OK?” You’re right, teams can make horrible decisions. They seem to emphasize nebulous notions of potential to the preclusion of rational thought. They ignore known entities to roll the proverbial dice on only partially formed athletes who can’t shoot but can move in multiple directions once airborne. They confuse priorities, they overly rely on individual workouts, they insist that kids who don’t care about college attend it for a year--we know all of this. ESPN even has the temerity to post graphics that say things like, “Needs to Improve: Athleticism,” as though you can just buy some at a flea market. The whole thing can lend itself to easy lampoon.

The NBA Draft is undeniably about playing basketball, though, and that redeems it. A sports fan can see this. (A sports fan stupid enough to watch Charley Steiner and Mike Patrick on a loop can see this over and over again.) The way it’s covered, the way it’s structured, the culture that surrounds it--basketball is the thing. More precisely, the focus never moves away from the on-court product, wrongly landing on the draft process, itself. Columnists and reporters frame the draft by highlighting what teams need to improve. There are pre-draft camps where prospects--brace yourselves--play the sport! Teams evaluate their needs and the available talent with immediacy. The idea is usually that the right player can make a meaningful difference, and the priority is finding the best basketball fit. Again, you can fairly criticize how these evaluations are made and where they net out, but it’s hard to impugn the motives behind them. Everything about the draft carries this air of renewal; everything acknowledges that improving the basketball is paramount.

Not unimportant, I should reiterate that the tone of the entire institution is optimistic: from the workouts, to the assessment of needs, to the handshakes with Commissioner Stern, the draft encompasses positivity about the game. Everyone is the next someone, and that someone to whom a given player is compared is rarely any old humdrum player. Parallels are drawn in the sun, with the glow of hope brightening prognostications. Further, front-office personnel, players, and fans are allowed, if not encouraged, to have fun with the whole thing. It is uncommon for a team to draft someone and foster an ensuing dialogue that bemoans how little things will change. There is a baseline understanding that the team is likely to become more competitive, even if a given draft cannot fully satisfy all needs. Enthusiasm is no stranger to the NBA Draft, and no one seems to be bothered by this. Heaven forbid that we enjoy ourselves while celebrating a game.



The NFL draft may be fundamentally about all of this, too. I’ll be fair and allow that this may be the case. Those yahoo Jets fans who show up certainly are into it. Nor will I deny that the denizens of America’s favorite gambling habit surely want to find the safety required to win a Super Bowl and help their fans feel the excitement that should come with successfully executing this search. But…it certainly doesn’t seem that way to an outsider who is very much attuned to sports culture. Instead, everything about the NFL Draft feels different: the way it's discussed, the way it’s administered, the way it’s approached by its participants. In patriotic, nationally aggrandizing Cold War terms, the NBA Draft feels like America--cheerful, excited, warm--while the NFL Draft feels like the Soviet Union--stern, severe, cold. Put another way, which event’s tenor would best accommodate Ronald Reagan eating his jellybeans and smiling with his vacant veneer of senility, and which would better serve Nikita Khrushchev as he pounded his shoe on a desk? That’s what I thought.

Peter King wrote a column this week that captures so many of these differences. Trumpeting that the Detroit Lions, picking first, will focus on "signability" when making their choice next weekend, King easily rattles off 1,000 words about how the Lions will sort out whom they draft. It’s Peter King, so it’s overly moralistic and very much written by a middle-aged white guy from New Jersey knowledgeable NFL writing, but, strikingly, it has so little to do with football. Instead, it’s about business strategy; it’s about what the Lions are supposed to pay a top pick; it’s about a historical analysis of “what happens in the draft,” so to speak. King’s story presumes a certain kind of draft formalism that not only shifts its natural focus--shouldn’t it be about improving how the Lions play football?--but also illustrates what the NFL Draft is really about, namely the theater of “playing draft.” Football is almost secondary, and that’s neither fun nor sports, really.

Before we go on, I’ll again attempt to be fair: Maybe another team coming off a historic failure wouldn’t focus on “signability,” and instead would try to get the single best player. This could be a problem with the Lions (entirely possible), and not with the NFL. Further, the NBA doesn’t contend with signing drama because it has a rookie salary cap, so this could be an apples-to-oranges comparison. However, the NFL salary structure is fairly rigid, albeit non-codified, and the variations from year to year are not so vast. Were they, professional draft blowhards like Mel Kiper, Jr.--something else that, thankfully, sets the NBA and NFL apart--couldn’t shriek with such certainty about which players deserve “fourth-pick money” and which picks are good values. It wouldn’t make sense if everyone didn’t already know the stakes.



You can likely sense my skepticism that the absent rookie salary cap is the dispositive issue that separates the NFL Draft from its NBA superior. I am similarly skeptical (read: convinced in the opposite) that only the Lions would be choosing a top pick using actuary tables because, well, we go through this every year. It’s seemingly always about factors that are not directly connected to who runs faster, hits harder, and, ultimately, wins more. I don’t suggest that NFL teams don’t want to play better football. Rather, I’d argue that this unavoidable imperative, somehow, gets lost in the draft process itself. Not really a “sports” weekend, the NFL Draft has taken on this weird, meta component that seems to fuck up the thinking and the dialogue. The football draft is treated like a series of business transactions, and teams appear to lose sight of just picking the players who will make them best at playing football. NFL teams come off as more preoccupied with "drafting the right way," or carrying out some process preserved for its own sake, rather than the foundational issue of just improving the team. (For now, we’ll leave aside the much, much larger conversation about sports as business, which I acknowledge renders this post an incomplete exploration. I am OK with that.)

That’s not fun. Nothing about this ritualism is fun. It’s weird, and frankly annoying, that as early as February, people seriously argue about who the Seahawks should draft. Similarly, there is something nonsensical and antiseptic about the premier pre-draft event comprising Wonderlic tests, World’s Strongest Man simulations, and seemingly everything but actually playing football. The entire ordeal--and that’s what it is--feels insincere and disconnected from the sport.



Instead, the NFL Draft, not in organic harmony with the sport itself, seems to most directly connect to the larger NFL Industrial Complex that enjoys a suffocatingly tight grip on America. Everything about the NFL is taken oh so seriously, and discussed with such synthetic urgency and significance, that actual football is almost a secondary concern. Violence and primal physical competition may forever hold sway over the imagination of humanity, resulting in an evergreen appeal for the sport, but the Business of the NFL obscures this simple, innate appeal. It’s like when you apply too much dressing and drown out the natural flavors originally meant to be enhanced. Far from a compulsory exercise meant to showcase the product, improve how it’s played, and preserve the latent appeal of sport--a description which I’d ascribe to the NBA Draft as a compliment--the NFL Draft is its own industry, in effect. The draft is just about the NFL--the crest, those beer commercials, all that tailgating, and everything else that was once an attendant circumstance and now an equal to the football.

That is not really sports. That is marketing, or popular culture, even. The Masters, the Final Four, the divisional football playoff games--those are sports weekends. Those are mirthful, exciting opportunities to celebrate sports. As is the NBA Draft, a process that never loses sight of basketball, of the NBA’s loose rhythm, or the hope of the offseason. The NFL Draft, on the other hand, is an event that’s not really about sports. It’s about itself, and the self-involved seriousness of the NFL. Football becomes almost incidental as the NFL Draft drones on, polluting a perfectly innocent spring weekend with consternation about tenths-of-a-second differences, stern treatment of depth chart minutiae, and self-righteous indignation arising when teams “get it wrong.” As though the goal is to draft a certain way, not win more games.

As I said before, that sucks.

Know Thy Mirrors

New Shoals Unlimited, on the subject of the NBA Financial Apocalypse in its form most pure. Oh, and as I try to figure out this new revenue streams thing, I may go a little heavy-handed at times. Like reminding you that it's decidedly un-weird to own the FreeDarko tote bag, or linking to commercial pages from out of posts. . . remember, I want to admit all this up-front so we trust each other.

In the latest ESPN mag, Bill Simmons eats breakfast with Baron Davis and tries to get to the heart of what's eating the former pride of the Warriors. For one, it's Simmons giving a fuck, which is to say, reminding us why he's so beloved and feared as a basketball writer [insert Freudian father figure, anxiety of influence tangent here]. But there's one truly unprecedented moment where, to paraphrase, Bill and Baron discuss Davis's lack of vitality on the court, conclude that it has to do with a lack of inspiration, and decide he needs to channel the "Boom-Dizzle" demi-god that rose out of the 2006-07 Warriors campaign.

Let's rewind that one, in case you missed how many fourth walls got violated therein: Davis opens up to a member of the media as if Simmons were there to help, a valued consultant instead of a thorn in his side. Then, he welcomes advice about his attitude on the court, even though the Sports Guy is not one of those wise ex-jocks who occasionally—and with great public fanfare—send messages to current players. To top it all off, or come full-circle, Simmons drifts over to the realm of fandom, drawing on his non-expert expertise to offer up a solution. Journalist and athlete meet in the middle, only to retreat to their respective sides of a gulf exactly because it's the source of the power, the mystique, that allowed Davis to thrive in the Bay. In short, it's Davis admitting that some of his swagger comes from a larger-than-life self that's both reinforced and reinvented by adoring fans. You can also imagine a more cynical version that involves sneaker companies and marketing entities.

In a way, this makes me understand why some people think Simmons is the only person alive who could realistically write another Breaks of the Game, likely the finest basketball book ever written. But this being a very different era, this new Breaks wouldn't just be expert reportage with an ear for the novelistic. Instead, it would go deep into one of Halberstam's recurring themes: what players mean to fans, or cities as a whole, and what impact this has on the actual person inside the jersey. Except, in a turn so benignly postmodern that I am contractually bound to type "postmodern," Simmons's authority comes from his willingness to intelligently embrace this fan-tastic aspect of the athlete. That, above all else, is how he's influenced FD.



However, instead of the players in Breaks of the Game, who come off as either staunch professionals troubled by this unpredictable realm of meaning, or egomaniacs who refuse to acknowledge what really fuels their stardom, you get today's NBA players. Davis may be exceptionally self-aware, but it's worth noting that popular players drowning in love feel it, feed off of it, and reflect it in their play. The concern isn't over why the public can't see them for who they are—either they could care less about everyone seeing "the real me", or such a thing no longer exists—it's about getting back to that place where they felt best and played like it. That's got everything to do with a version of themselves that has everything to do with perception, or consulting an expert on attitudes in the stands. Simmons remains the foremost chronicler of these voices, and if you want to understand why blogs matter, it's because—no matter how crappy they're treated by the league—fans matter like never before.

Happened Upon Innocently

In the latest ESPN Mag's Josh Smith feature.

Paints for Mirrors

Quote of the holiday day: "You bring me the yeti and I'll release your parents." Meatloaf said it, no less.

I knew there was a reason I was so thoroughly invested in Anthony Randolph. Besides being my last best hope for feeling like I'm touching the league's pulse, Randolph's also bringing it back to 2001 for the MSM. Check out these quotes from Bucher (bold all mine):

Sources also say rookie phenom Anthony Randolph, who some believe has the talent to one day be among the league's top 10 players, has been told he's not fitting in and could be dealt.

I guess FD is still more influential than I ever imagined. Are people really saying this? And if indeed it is front office folks, isn't the planet spinning backward if they're on my wavelength? Not that potential will ever completely disappear as a factor in assessing talent, but aren't things supposed to be getting more rational, economical, and here-and-now when it comes to team-building?

If you think I'm overreacting, how about this:

Yes, Randolph is 19 and plays with crazy rambunctiousness that results in silly fouls and ugly turnovers. But he also routinely makes plays -- blocked shots, crushing putback dunks and acrobatic drives -- that are beyond any other Warrior's capability. People within the organization talk about him the way they did Webber, as a singular talent capable of someday making the team a title contender. According to a half-dozen scouts and GMs, he has the potential to nudge out Derrick Rose as the best player in his draft class.



This is one of those "how serious is FD" moments. I would never say any of this with a straight face, because for now, Randolph's mystique is light years away from anything this concrete. I might be treading on the old "potentially potential" territory, but at this point, I think the real drama is seeing what kind of prospect Randolph develops into, not projecting what he might do as a refined NBA player. I'm especially attached to the kind of athlete who forces this kind of thinking. The charm, and the irony, of it is that you've got the fantastic doubling as the height of scouting acumen, the whimsical and the shrewd forced to pull in the same direction. But there's a big difference between venturing there selectively (less so if you're a half-serious blog) and applying it as a matter of course, as front offices once did; it's also bizarre to see it show up at all now, seeing how the climate has changed, the age limit has sobered everyone up, and there are so many embarrassing quotes on the record about past duds. I guess Anthony Randolph really is that fucking powerful.

Also, I was looking at my fantasy team and happened to click here. I have to say, if there's any single reason for me to be alienated from the NFL, it's the way running backs—my favorite position—currently rise and fall, or are platooned. Maybe my "I miss 2003" is nostalgia for the height of my interest in the NFL, but it also marks the exact point at which platoons and "RB's are finished at 30" started their ascent. It keeps real star power from gaining traction—T-Mac, injury-ravaged as he is, is still a viable star at 30 due to his playmaking ability; Kobe at near 31 is 1A or 1B in the league—but it cheapens the position itself, and what the individual's contribution to it means. Feel free to insert your favorite FD buzzword (style, personality, etc.) anywhere in the preceding graph.

Merry Christmas, and may you live like a slipping pitch.

FD Guest Lecture: Chains of a King

In honor of Amir's starting slot, we've called on Matt Watson to give a brief history of all the reasons he supposedly wasn't starting yet. Then, cop the FREE AMIR shirt to celebrate.

Also, don't miss Dr. LIC on our people, and please participate in our DonorsChoose drive.


Flip Saunders, November 11, 2007:

“Thirteen years ago, I had Kevin Garnett and at that time he was the first guy to come into the league from high school in like 20 years. Amir has gotten more publicity this year, a guy who’s never played, than Garnett did that first year, and here’s a guy who was the first high school guy in 20 years.”

Reading this makes me feel silly. Here I was driving Amir's bandwagon last year and I apparently missed his Sports Illustrated cover. Can someone mail me a copy? Before KG was drafted, I remember NBA general managers insisting "that Garnett had more talent and ability than any of his peers," and coaches saying, "Garnett's got everybody going, "Whoa.' A lot of people say he has a Connie Hawkins and Julius Erving flair."

Amir, on the other hand, spent his summer of restricted free agency sorting through dozens several zero offer sheets from other teams before re-signing with the Pistons. The parallels are mind-boggling!

Chris McCosky, November 12, 2007:

On another issue: Let’s back off of Amir Johnson for a bit, OK? I don’t know what some people expect from this kid, but he’s not Magic Johnson. He’s not ready to be in the regular rotation and contribute 25 to 30 minutes a game. He’s not going to be ready all year, is my guess. This isn’t the Pistons’ version of Cameron Maybin. Nobody’s ever said he was the greatest prospect ever to come through the pike. He was the 56th pick in the draft, taken right out of high school. He wasn’t the first overall pick. He’s an extremely athletic but extremely raw kid. He is active and he can finish around the basket. He can block shots and run the floor. But other than that, he’s still finding his way (on the court and off it). For now and for the foreseeable future, he’s the 11th or 12th man this year getting mostly just spot minutes.>

He's not KG and he's not Magic, he's just some scrub who's "extremely athletic," "active," "can finish around the basket" and "block shots and run the floor." But that's it! Why in the world would you want to see the Pistons give a guy like that playing time?



Flip Saunders, February 28, 2008:

"You have to give Amir credit for keeping on fighting. He didn't give up on things even though Maxie was playing well, getting lots of accolades. Amir just kept on fighting through things, and when he got an opportunity, he's taken advantage of it."

Um, that's actually good to hear. When Amir plays, good things happen -- keep giving this guy some burn!

Flip Saunders, two days later, following a loss in Utah in which Amir didn't play:

“But we made a mistake — we should have played him. We got in a situation where they were making such a run, and we thought at that point it was too late. First thing I said afterwards was, ‘We should have played Amir, and we didn’t.’"

Considering you just admitted how well Amir has played, yeah, giving him a DNP was a head-scratcher. But at least you realize your mistake, right?

Flip Saunders in the same article:

“We have people who are saying, ‘Start Amir.’ But they don’t know that Antonio McDyess has been one of the leading rebounders in minutes played in the NBA over the last month. You can’t always look at superficial things.”

AGH! You should have stopped while you were ahead. What's more superficial than looking at the splits for just one month? For the season, Amir Johnson averaged 14.7 rebounds per 48; McDyess, 14.0/48. If you don't want to play Amir, talking about rebounds isn't that smart ...



Flip Saunders, March 5, 2008 after signing Theo Ratliff:

I think we're committed to staying with the rotation that we have and see where that takes us," said Saunders. "But I think what we do have is we do have other players that, if things aren't working, maybe you have a little bit of a shorter leash … If our bench gives us in the playoffs what they're giving us right now, we're going to play them. Our hope is that they're going to be able to continue to do that."

For the months of March and April, Johnson's per 48 numbers: 11.2 points, 13.9 boards and 4.8 blocks to go with 55% shooting. And now, Ratliff's: 10.7 points, 10.3 boards, 4.0 blocks, 10.3 boards to go with 45% shooting.

Saunders, being a man of his word ... completely dropped Johnson from his playoff rotation. Johnson played a grand total of 43 minutes in the postseason, including just seven minutes beyond the first round. Ratliff, on the other hand, played 131 minutes.

Granted, it's a little silly to project a guy's per 48 numbers when he played a grand total of 43 minutes, but for the sake of comparison, here they are: Johnson averaged 23.4 points, 14.5 boards, 3.35 blocks on 75% shooting; Ratliff averaged 5.9 points, 9.9 boards, 4.0 blocks and 50% shooting.

Clearly, Flip's rotation was a meritocracy.

Brain Battles on Slip-Top

I know we've lost all patience for Phil Jackson's hands-off brilliance, or the tease of Lamar Odom becoming the next Scottie or Magic in this offense. But hark, today Ronald Lazenby drops some science that I find it impossible to resist:

These mind games come in such variety that many times the people around Jackson proceed through the game without even being aware that they are participating, that he has engaged them in it and manipulated them. (He is magnificent at manipulating the media; reporters often seem least aware of his skill, perhaps because they're easy suckers for the ego candy he feeds them).

His players are usually a bit smarter than reporters, so they have at least a dim awareness.

There's about 10,000 more uses of the word "deep" in the paragraphs before and after, but this is pretty dope. Because we always assume that we're on the outside looking in, watching these feeble-minded—if not exactly unprepared—Lakers pushed and pulled by the master. What if, though, Lazenby (who knows himself more Lakers than most of us put together) is right, and the players are often co-conspirators, or props, in Phil's attempts not to motivate individual players, but to manipulate coverage of his team? This would make a mockery of camp; the point becomes not getting the team together, but getting certain memes out there in the press. Giving the impression that the team is or isn't working, that Odom is both the future and incompetent . . . really, do you think he's not saying something else behind closed doors?

In other words, in this all, the journalist is object, not subject. Phil is the master. And it's up to the players to sort out just how much they belong to either side.

BONUS: TSB post on MAVERICK fatigue and that Dallas team with the same name.

FD Guest Lecture: Something About Robots

Ziller weighs on yet another urgent current event. But don't sleep on the Recluse's take on the Josh Howard situation. Really, don't. Or the ongoing, unspeakably awesome, Presidental 21 Tournament.

Gelf published a keen, damning piece on faux media-driven controversy in the ever-tiring baseball stats-vs-scouts war. ("Ever-tiring" because anyone who knows anything in that sport saw the light years ago. Those withholding belief have become a farce and their denials self-parody. Sort-of like everything about a particular presidential campaign.) In the Gelf post, Jake Rake notes the baseball war has basically moved to a cold phase, with mutual understanding overriding deep hatred despite the lasting media narrative. (I mean, damn, FJM's been dormant almost all fall.) That isn't the case in the NBA, of course, and it never will be. TIMELY NEWS HOOK: Gil.

Last year, no shortage of "scout" types basted Arenas because the Wizards had the audacity to play well without him. It's the fucking Ewing Theory gone mad: if a team is X units of good when player A is healthy, and X, X-1 or X+1 units of good when A is injured, A must be useless, overrated, not worth the currency he graces. Basketball, the most interdependent game in the whole universe ... and we'll leave out players B through E. NEVER MIND that one of the cornerstone pleas of the anti-stat basketball crowd is the nonlinearity and INTERDEPENDENCE of basketball. They argue that you can't measure a player's worth because there are too many variables. But when a player beloved by science doesn't get enough W's, it's all on that player's talent/production/performance. It's a completely two-faced argument.



Is it a secret that the formulas generally adore Gil? Dean Oliver rates Arenas highly. Same for Hollinger and the adjusted plus-minus set. (Berri hates scoring and thus is recused from the matter.) Almost all basketball seamheads consider Arenas an elite efficient scoring genius. So the opposing view from much of the anti-stats crowd -- elucidated so plainly in David Friedman's senseless assault on Gil last year -- is that all those points come at a cost to the team, as if Arenas scoring 30 a night on solid shooting dismisses the grit and effort and team play Washington trots out there when dude's off playing grab-ass with Beau Biden.

The argument aganst Gil from "basketball purists" (that term's loaded like a Kennedy) is that Gil gets his, but does not contribute to the team in any meaningful way. PROOF: the Wizards did well without him. The argument by the maths: Gil gets his, which helps the team. PROOF: the Wizards got good when Arenas came 'round, and basic arithmetic indicates Gil does many important basketball tasks (score, pass, draw fouls, shoot) extraordinarily well, which helps the team. There's no way to prove who's right, insomuch as there's no way to make irrational, anti-reality folk concede to fact when their heart's fixed on a narrative that feels good.

If someone isn't willing to believe Arenas is an amazing talent based on the proof which exists, you'll never change their mind. So really, the best this season of Gil could have provided to we of the pasty numberkind who have is an appendix of truth, a fuck-you synopsis of mathematical philosophy. All we lost was the chance to point at the scoreboard during a game without a mercy rule. So Gil's valiant ascent with Caron and 'Tawn to maybe first-round home-court has been dashed, and the thieved opportunity for a minor victory stings. But the war rages on. IN DIOGU WE TRUST.

That's the Name I Was Given

READ SHOALS' analysis of last night just below this post. I, on the other hand, will acknowledge that I didn't really watch the games yesterday because I'm prescient and I don't like to watch games that I don't like the outcomes of. Am more interested in this D'Antoni to the Knicks thing, because I might be the only person on the planet who thinks that it might work out perfectly. Look, the Knicks' players suck. I'm finally going to admit that. And no amount of fastbreaking will change that. But there are some important similarities between Mike D and the Knicks that bode well for the future.

They don't like to play defense. He doesn't like to coach defense.
They've never won anything. He hasn't really won anything either.
They're tremendously overpaid. He is tremendously overpaid.

All of this results in the perfect cocktail of something to prove mixed with a sense of entitlement that may give New York the exact type of swag they need. D'Antoni's rep as a coach players like is also important for facilitating the jettisoning of the Knicks' deadweight players. To put it simply, if you don't jibe with D'Antoni, it's YOUR FAULT, so leave. The only thing I really didn't like about Isiah's hateable-ness is that it gave his crappy players a free pass. There was too much attributional ambiguity. Oh, Zach Randolph has a bad attitude? Blame it on Isiah. Stephon Marbury is nuts? Must be because of Isiah. Eddy Curry is lazy you say? Isiah's fault again. For better or for worse, D'Antoni is so likeable that the players should feel a renewed sense of personal responsibility.



ON TO MORE IMPORTANT THINGS (taking the long road there). You know when you grow up "doing some sort of art." Say, rapping. If you do it for long enough, you reach a certain level of maturity where two important things happen: (1) You realize that you are actually now as smart or smarter than certain people "in that artform" that you formerly looked up to. Like, why would I look to Grouch & Eligh & Sixtoo for insight about life? I've had enough interesting life experience to know that this stuff isn't really that deep. And then (2) You realize that certain people are so good at the particular craft and you admire them so much, that you've actually just been a crappier version of (Posdnuos/Breezly Brewin/Andre3000,etc.) this whole time, and you need to do some serious soul-searching to do something that is specifically and originally YOU to really do good art.

Well, just as I've had these experiences on the music front, the same could be said for my "sportswriting." Similar to rolling my eyes at indie rappers' life insight, it's like, look, I've taken enough stats and methods courses over the past few years to know that John Hollinger's propaganda is essentially a lot of pseudoscience, and at a basic level inferring causation based on correlation. Had Hollinger been around when I was 13 years old, though, I probably would have thought I was reading like, the Steven Pinker of basketball. At the same time, there are those (an ever dwindling number) who get this shit so right, that it makes me rethink my whole agenda in this hoops blogging game. For example, prior to this past weekend, the passage below, from Bill Simmons in response to Ralph Wiley, during one of their legendary conversations, was probably my personal hoops-writing Pledge of Allegiance--the most important thing to me:

You asked why I love the NBA so much, and if it bothers me that some of my readers don't want me to read those columns as much. My feeling was always this: if you write about something passionately enough, and you know what you're talking about, I think most people will want to keep reading no matter the subject. Sometimes you can go too far -- like John McPhee writing about rocks -- but I think there are enough diehards out there, as well as people following the NBA on a rudimentary level who could be coaxed into following it more. So that's always been my hope. I would rather write about something I love than write about something I don't follow.


(Note: One of the biggest problems with the NBA is that there aren't enough quality writers involved. Think about baseball and all the wonderful writers that have tackled that sport -- Updike, Talese, Angell, Cramer, Halberstam, etc. -- along with the dozens and dozens of baseball books that come out every year. But the best NBA book ever was "Breaks of the Game," and that came out more than 20 years ago. In my case, I grew up reading Bob Ryan in the Globe -- his passion made me like basketball even more than I already did. He's always been the role model for me when writing about hoops, as well as for how to get away with a cheesy blazer and khaki pants that are two sizes too short on national TV.)


The biggest obstacle for the NBA has always been the black-white thing -- marketing a league full of mostly black players to a country filled with mostly white people who can afford the tickets. This almost killed the league in the late-'70s (detailed extensively in "Breaks of the Game") and reared its head in the post-MJ Era (and I'm not counting the Wizards years, because they never happened). I always thought Iverson's career was a fascinating litmus test. Here's someone who was clearly the most exciting player in the league from post-MJ through 2002, but he also represented everything that Generic White America hates about the NBA: Tatts, cornrows, in-your-face, loose cannon, the background to match. And I'm not sure how this dilemma is solved.


Yes, the NFL is the best product. Yes, baseball has the history. But I always feel like the NBA should be more popular than it is, and I think part of the reason is that enough quality people aren't writing about it. What other sport combines this much athleticism, drama and unintentional comedy? What other sport has Calvin Murphy's kids, Doctor J's sex tape, Mrs. Christie, Mark Cuban's Weblog, Barkley and Kenny making fun of Sam Cassell in code, the completely insane Ron Artest, J-Kidd trying to seduce the NBA trophy and everything else? Hot damn I love this game.


It still holds up 4 years later, and that was pretty much my inspiration for years, what made me tell my friend Pete in Berkeley in 2004 that I wanted to write a book of the type that Shoals, Recluse, Silverbird, Big Baby, and I just completed. To me, it was pretty much the pinnacle of encapsulating everything I wanted to say about basketball. Until I read this. And this. Many of you may have already seen these pieces (evidently there's one more coming today), but if you have not, drop your Sudoku puzzle, and take some time to read these insane interviews with Britt Robson. I really can't describe the level that this dude is on, and would prefer you just hear it from the man himself. I was lucky enough to grow up in Minneapolis and read his stuff in the City Pages, but it wasn't until I actually moved out of state that I became a regular reader.

Robson, to put it similarly to our friend Kelly Dwyer, is the next epoch. As many of you know has been the beat writer for the Timberwolves since forever, and is pretty much the sole reminder of the fact that Minnesota professional hoops doesn't end with Kevin Garnett. The guy wrote multi-thousand word tomes after every single Wolves game THIS PAST YEAR (can't think of anything more Free Darko than that), discussing the intricacies of Chris Richard's helpside defense and Ryan Gomes' confidence with Coen Bros-caliber intrigue. Just read the amount of truth and substance this guy is dropping and you will remember why you get out of bed in the morning. For me, it's time to reinvent myself.

The Stake Won't Leave

I'm about one day behind the rest of the world right now, which is only partially the fault of shifting time zones. Hope to recover fully by this afternoon.

Not that anyone else needs to weigh in on the Will/Buzz matter, especially seeing as it's already a century old in blog-years. But as much as I disdain 90% of the blogs being written today–sorry, I only feel real solidarity with the good ones—and as immune as I think FD is to a lot of the anti-blog criticism, I'm still mad as hell and need to say something.

I still don't get why Buzz got to comport himself like an unhinged, drunken bully, and have it tacitly excused off by Costas as [loosely] "those old school fiery writers, they tell it like it is." If Will had gone on there cursing and chain smoking, it would've been used against him in an instant to confirm all sorts of stereotypes. But as much as everyone's saying "oh, he played himself with bluster," the fact remains that Bissinger was allowed to do that. It was his right as a "real writer."



And then when Costas got all high-and-mighty about the informed experienced that comes from sitting in the press box, or getting access after games. Please. That's one big machine, and most people play along with it as effortlessly as possible. This romanticism they're projecting comes down not to newspaper reporting, but just to paying attention to sports—sometimes easier from a press seat—and then maybe, just maybe, happening to coax one or two candid quotes out of an athlete that 50 other people don't overhear. Time that, in my experience, could often be better spent trying to, you know, write.

Today, I'm pretty much angry at everyone. Angry at old dudes who think their dying medium makes them better than me. Angry at shit bloggers who give the medium (which is all it is, a way to deliver information) a bad name. And just generally pissed off that, in some remote way, FreeDarko could be lazily included in this discussion. Like if you want to talk about writing chops, and ability to capture the moment, and all that shit that Costas has taped onto his eyelids, I will go toe to toe with anyone. I do not give a fuck.



I like humor, and pithiness, and humanizing gossip (how is that any more pernicious than THE STORYLINE) that some people have a problem with, and yet really, part of me just wants to print out some of my best stuff and use it to beat the living shit out of these blog haters. Because the sweeping, dismissive nature of their arguments doesn't just prove their ignorance, or show they're threatened by a new way of delivering information. It's an insult to people who do this as a means to write, plain and simple.

So yeah, consider this a fatwa. For basketball, stay eyes opened for a Quotemonger and some Deadspin previews.

BONUS: Shanoff's take, published at exactly the same time as mine. It's the analytical ying to my apocalyptic, self-absorbed yang. And I agree with every word of it, when I'm not busy eating glass and trashing all my hosts' furniture. Because that's how real writers do. I am wearing a white tee, and plan to drive off a cliff with my girl in the passenger side very, very soon. EARLY.

UPDATE: Heere is that Quotemonger.

UPDATE 2: Hornets/Spurs preview

Scale Matters

I still have no fucking clue what half of this Ralph Wiley column means, but with the T-Mac renaissance on, I find myself returning to it anyway.

I've said plenty before that no one's failures drain me quite like McGrady's. The flipside of that, which I never thought we'd see again, is that his highs can make your whole gut heave with joy. It's like that ecstatic quality the 2004-05 Suns had, or the Warriors during last year's run, made personal instead of ideological. It's not just thrilling and expansive, it's also hopeful.

I guess that's sentimental, or shows the softer side of sports, but emoting isn't supposed to have victims. Oh also, T-Mac playing like this is must-watch for me the way those Suns or Warriors are.

And no, hope isn't an ideology, it's a bottomless appeal. That's why Obama works so well.